By most accounts, the boy wizard's final cinematic adventure is a fittingly dramatic and explosive end to this phenomenally popular series. The same cannot be said of the videogame version.

The climactic stages of Rowling's story are dashed through at a breakneck pace – non-fans will be left bemused – with developer Bright Light seemingly in a constant hurry to get back to the action. Heaven knows why, as it all boils down to an anaemic third-person shooter where wands replace guns and spells are merely ammunition.

There's a staggering lack of invention here: the box touts the ability to play as eight different characters, though all have essentially the same task, which is to shoot hordes of evil wizards who amble towards the player, their sorcery apparently feebler than that of the Hogwarts-trained characters. Attempts to inject variety include tedious chase sequences that require Harry to run towards the camera and a section where one character protects another from afar, using long-range magic like a spell-casting sniper.

This paucity of imagination infects the entire game, with only Harry's (little-used) ability to apparate to safety and some lovely music escaping the curse. That such rich source material has been so shockingly wasted is a crime. To paraphrase the bespectacled hero: patheticus totalus!